


tension

by prettylovely



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, No Incest, Tickling, a lot of cursing actually sorry about that, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26333458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettylovely/pseuds/prettylovely
Summary: Klaus thinks Five needs to relax. Unfortunately, Five disagrees, so Klaus takes matters into his own hands... literally.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 23
Kudos: 158





	tension

It was a full six months now from the day the whole world _didn't_ end, and Five still couldn't shake the sense it had all been nothing but a dream—a long and crazy and ridiculous and impossible and _incredible_ dream, because the apocalypse couldn't be over, the apocalypse couldn't _really_ be over, the apocalypse could _never_ really be over, just like the Handler couldn't _really_ be dead and the Commission couldn't really have given up on him, because that was simply too good to be true.

It was all too good to be true—it was all too simple, all too easy, all too perfect, all too wrapped up with shiny pretty paper and a bright red bow, no worlds to save, no apocalypses to stop, nothing but the quiet and slow and ordinary life he had wanted so badly for so long, nothing but a quiet and slow and ordinary life with his family—so it obviously couldn't _be_ true.

These last six months meant nothing. These last six months _were_ nothing. These last six months were nothing but a trick, these last six months were nothing but a _trap_ , and sooner or later, the world would be at its end, all over again—the earth itself would wait, on the brink of absolute devastation, just long enough for Five to rush in and pull it back—or the Handler would come back for him, or the whole Commission would come for him, and he could _never_ let himself forget that. He could never let himself think it was over. He could _never_ let himself believe this was real.

These last six months were nothing but a dream.

And, sooner or later, Five would have to wake up.

"What on earth did that poor coffee ever do to you?"

At least Five didn't _actually_ jolt up off the sofa, but damn if he didn't come a little too close—and damn if his heart didn't pound out a too-hard, too-fast song only he could hear, and damn if his knuckles didn't turn completely white around the chipped cup in his hand—before he caught himself, and tossed a scowl over at Klaus instead.

"Just sayin'," Klaus said, and plopped down on the ugly, overstuffed sofa _right next to Five_ , like he didn't even _see_ all the other obviously open, glaringly unoccupied seats in the room. "You were looking a little tense there, _mon frère_." He clicked his tongue. "Well, you _always_ look a little tense."

"Shut up, Klaus."

But the day Klaus finally learned to take a hint would go down in Hargreeves family history, and today was clearly _not_ going to be that day. "Oh, come on, I'm serious!" Like that wasn't the biggest oxymoron ever. "You got to _relax_! Do you even know how to relax? Did you kill it? Did you kill your capacity to relax?"

"I don't recall asking for your opinion," Five snapped, because he couldn't say what he really wanted to say, and what he really wanted to say was _don't you get it, don't you understand, don't you know this is all a lie, don't you know this is too good to be true, don't you know this is all a dream, don't you know we have to wake up?_

"—I mean, Christ, my body hurts just _looking_ at yours," Klaus rambled on, like he had said a lot more before that Five hadn't even heard, and to be absolutely fair to Klaus, he probably had. "Do you even remember how to unclench your jaw?"

"Do you even remember how to shut up?" Five said, because he couldn't say _don't you get it, don't you understand, don't you know this is all a dream?_

"Alright, alright," Klaus said, but it didn't actually sound like a surrender. "Get over here, little mister."

And—before Five could dump his hot coffee in Klaus' lap, or blink away to his room, or say _if you ever call me that again, you will be the next case on Buzzfeed Unsolved_ —Klaus leaned over, clamped his hands firmly down on Five's shoulders, and kneaded his long fingers lightly over the clenched muscles down his back, in a very pathetic and ill-conceived attempt at a massage.

"Klaus," Five said, because if he blinked away to his room _now_ , with Klaus' hands on him, he would just take his brother with him, and he didn't have a pencil to stab Klaus, and if he tried to reach back and hit Klaus, he would probably miss, and if he moved away too fast, he would spill his coffee, and _not_ in Klaus' lap, so this was the best he could do at the current moment, "what the fuck are you doing?"

"Helping you relax," Klaus said, all innocence, but Five could hear the stupid grin in his voice.

"I'm going to kill you," he said, despite the distinct lack of satisfactory murder weapons in the room. He could always improvise. He was pretty good at that.

"Yeah," Klaus said, like he had already made his peace with his inevitable fate, "but you'll be relaxed."

And goddamn it if it wasn't _true_ , because Five could actually feel all the tight knots and gnarls in his back melt away to nothing, the rigid line of his shoulders go slack and loose, his fists soften into open, lax hands, and it felt—

—it felt _good_.

It felt _so good_ , and it was almost reflex, really, sink into it, to shut his eyes and tip back his head and go almost _limp_ , and he obviously had to push Klaus away and tell him to fuck off, but he could put it off for a minute longer, couldn't he—?

Klaus shifted down, and his fingers worked easily into Five's sides instead, and it—

—like an itch, like a tingle, almost, but it got sharper and sharper until it was a jolt, until it was a strike of lightning, an electric current under his skin—

—it _tickled_.

Holy shit, it tickled. _A lot_. But there was no way it could—there was no way Five could _still be_ —come on, he was nearly sixty years old, for Christ's sake, and even if his body was currently very much thirteen, he was _still_ —oh, shit, shit, holy shit, _holy shit_ , forget the fucking details, it tickled like _hell_ , and he opened his mouth to say _stop,_ to say _get your hands off me_ , but he—

—fuck it all, but he _laughed_.

Hell, it was hardly even a laugh—it was a goddamned giggle, and he knew it, and it was this stupid body, all right, it was this ridiculous teenage skin he was stuck in, it was absolutely nothing to do with him, but it didn't make him feel any better about it. He sounded like a _child_ , all bright and bubbly and basically the complete antithesis of himself, but he couldn't do shit to stop it, and Klaus was _still going_ , and he couldn't stop that _fucking giggle_ , and Klaus—

—Klaus _finally_ stopped.

"Oh, my god," Klaus said, and he sounded like he did the first time Allison let him try on her favorite skirt. "Oh, my god. _Five_. You're still ticklish?"

"N-No," Five said, and he had to pretend the words weren't a desperate gasp for breath. "Keep your stupid hands to yourself. I _told_ you I didn't want—"

"Oh, my god, you're _still ticklish_!" Klaus echoed, like maybe he wanted the whole damn Academy to hear him, and oh, God, if the whole damn Academy heard about this, Five was _never going to live it down_. "That's _adorable_!"

 _Jesus Christ._ Five's cheeks burned, and yes, that was _also_ his ridiculous teenage body, thank you very much. "You're hearing things," he snapped. "And if you're just going to keep talking crazy," he pushed himself up off the sofa, "I'm going to—"

"Oh, no, no," Klaus waved his hands around, the ink on his palms flashing stark and black against his white skin, before he reached out and latched his bony little fingers around Five's wrist, "no, no, you are _not_ getting away from me, young man!"

"Klaus, _I will actually murder you_!"

Klaus pulled Five down onto the sofa—the coffee sailed out of his hand and crashed to the floor with a sharp tinkle—and plopped himself _on top_ of Five's legs to pin him to the seat. "Yeah," he said. "But you'll be relaxed. And didn't I say," he lightly poked up and down Five's ribs with every word, and fuck fuck fuck it already tickled _so much_ , "you need to relax?"

And, without another word, Klaus dug right into the soft skin of Five's stomach.

Five squealed—actually fucking _squealed_ , like a _child_ , and he had literally never hated being thirteen again more than he did right this second, squirming and shrieking under Klaus' hands, his mouth stretched in a smile so wide, his cheeks hurt. He tried like hell to shut up, but Klaus had made himself at a home on a little spot right under Five's navel, and he was pretty sure he might actually die in the next sixty seconds or so if those goddamn fingers didn't _move_.

"I-I'm gonna—" he could hardly even hear himself over his own wild laughter, but saying it still made him feel a little better about his current, extremely helpless, position, "—I'm gonna f-fucking _kill you_ , you're s-so fucking d-dead—"

"You don't sound like you're really feeling the relaxation," Klaus said, but he finally--thank God--took his hands off Five's stomach, and tickled a positively lethal path up and down his ribs instead. "You can't fight it, Five, you gotta let it in!"

"Fuck you!" Five snapped out, but a bright burst of giggles tumbled out, in the same breath, and it drastically undermined the words, and Jesus Christ, he hadn't laughed this hard in forty-five years. He didn't think he had ever laughed this hard in his entire life.

And it was actually, kind of, a little bit—well— _fun_.

He was pretty sure he was going to pass out any minute now, and Klaus was probably going to spread this around to the rest of the family, and Five would obviously have to change his name and go into Witness Protection, but it was _fun_ , and it felt _nice_ , and he had actually forgotten what it felt like to laugh, to really laugh, out loud, and he never even knew how much he had really missed it until right now, when he had it back.

Klaus' fingers finally slowed to a stop, with one last savage stroke down Five's left side, and he smiled a big dumbass smile, and Five thought the lift, the stretch, in his own cheeks must mean he was still smiling right back.

"There," Klaus said simply. "Much better."

"Fuck you," Five said, again, but here's the thing—he still couldn't get that stupid smile off his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for checking this out! I've never actually posted any of my writing where people could see before, so I'm really nervous, and I hope it's okay! I know it's silly, but it made me happy :)


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